


Writing Letters Home

by Krasimer



Series: Writing Letters Home [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: AU in a major way, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Relationships, Backstory, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, I will explain in the note, If any of this seems familiar, Military Jargon, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Racism, Self-Indulgent, Slow To Update, The character death is not the main people, Violence, We're going way off canon, Working to explain but not excuse some things, sometimes, trust me on that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-05 01:58:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16358480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krasimer/pseuds/Krasimer
Summary: “Who the hell are the Vances’, Mustang?”(A story has gone untold for so long -- Is there any way to tell it without changing the entire future of the State?)





	Writing Letters Home

“Who the hell are the Vances’, Mustang?”

The file that hit his desk with a heavy thud made Roy felt like closing his eyes and sighing. Fullmetal had a way of finding every detail, no matter what. “I don’t see why it is any of your business.”

“It’s my business when I find notes and theories signed off by a guy named William Vance.” Ed’s eyes were narrowed at him, his automail clenching at his side. “I was doing your mission, I was clearing out the research of the dead guy, and I found notes and theories and alchemy circles signed by William Vance. I know the name, Mustang,” Ed paused for a moment, dragging in a harsh breath. “A woman named Artemis Vance…”

“She died years ago,” Roy cut him off with a quick movement of his hand. “And she is none of your business.”

“PlantShock alchemist,” Ed pushed forward, his voice oddly quiet. “Killed during the Ishbal conflict. Written down as an accident, but no one was ever actually sure of it. Her brother died a year and a half earlier, same war. Mustang, I-”

“I said it wasn’t your business-”

“What about if I came across this folder about them in the lab I was just looking through?” Ed spoke over him, his hands reaching forward to grip the edge of his desk. “I didn’t raid the file room, Mustang. This,” he waved jerkily at the folder he had brought in. “Was in the dead guy’s lab! There are notes written in the margins of the papers that talk about theories. The whys and hows of them being dead. In the guy’s lab.” He shook his head, drawing his hands back to scrub through his hair. “You’ve only ever sent me on missions to find out things relating to the Stone, Mustang.”

Roy blinked a couple of times, pulling the folder to him and flipping it open. “…In the lab?”

“In the lab.”

Fullmetal had been sent to investigate a man who had been researching an array that Roy had made sure to keep quiet. The notes he had been sending in were implicating contact with the Gate. The Vance siblings shouldn’t have been connected anywhere in it.

Both of them had died in Ishbal.

“I…” Roy looked up to see Ed staring him down, something like fear in those golden eyes. He was fifteen, still a child. The weight of war had never pressed down on his shoulders. He hadn’t known the countless deaths that came from being in the military, not yet. “Go back to the alchemist’s lab,” he ordered quietly. “Search through it and see if you can find anything else like this. If you do find anything, bring it straight to me.”

For once, Ed didn’t push back against his orders.

“Dismissed, Fullmetal. Make sure to keep in contact, alright?”

The boy gave a lazy, half-assed salute, rolling his eyes before turning on his toes and half-jogging out the door. Mysteries always had the biggest draw for him, the need to know burning deep into his brain. Of course he would jump on the chance to figure something out, with bonus points if that something was weird.

Roy took a deep breath through his nose, then turned back to the file still under his hands. Artemis and Archimedes Vance. The file mentioned their father as well, a man named William Vance. Roy hadn’t met him more than a handful of times and that number included just passing him in the halls. He had disappeared when his children were children. Artemis had been a toddler, even, younger than Elysia was now.

The Vance siblings had been raised in the military-run orphanage and both had enlisted.

Artemis had been the youngest state alchemist before Fullmetal.

She had been fifteen when she signed up and she and Roy had met maybe three times. She had been eighteen when she died. Her brother had been twenty when he had died. Artemis’s official cause of death was ‘Casualty of War’ and her brother had been marked down as a victim of a stray bullet.

The notes on the side of the page listing the causes of death mentioned neither one being an accident.

A wave of icy fear spread through Roy’s chest as he paused and reread the notes, looking at the pictures of the two soldiers he had barely known. They had both been under someone else’s command. Artemis had been under a General Everhearst and Archimedes had been under Brigadier-General Sloan. The siblings had been separated as was part of a policy to avoid personal relations interfering with orders.

The notes on that seemed to indicate a deeper reason for it.

He glanced over them, frowning at some of the words that just skimming picked up. If the file was to be believed, they had been separated to cause confusion and compliance. A way to hold the siblings against each other, to keep them from turning on those in charge if the information alluded to was to be found out by them.

According to the notes, Archimedes had been causing a fuss about being in a different command than his sister.

Roy nearly cursed when he realized that the notes were dated only two weeks before his death. Archimedes had found something, then, something someone had not wanted getting out. He had found something or been told something and he had tried to get his sister within reach. Without a doubt, Roy was willing to bet that the young soldier had found out about whoever had been keeping the notes he now held.

It sent a nervous panic rising in his gut.

Nothing good ever came out of a soldier finding secrets. More often than not, that soldier ended up in a shallow grave.

Archimedes might have died for what he’d found.

Artemis might have died for what her brother could have told her. He didn’t know, hadn’t spoken to her more than twice despite meeting her three times. The first time had been her trailing behind her commanding officer, little more than a Private, with her hands clenched and her eyes narrowed at something. She’d been a State Alchemist, had enlisted young, been friends with most of the people she’d encountered.

Been sixteen when he’d met her that first time, immediately drawn under Riza Hawkeye’s guidance. Someone to teach the girl how to shoot, how to survive in a world torn apart by a war.

“Sir?”

He looked up from the file and saw the very woman he’d been thinking of standing at his door. “Lieutenant,” he inclined his head briefly. “Was there something you needed?” he waited for an answer as he gently slid the file into a drawer. There was no need to bring up something when he didn’t even have concrete evidence for what it might be leading to.

It was less a matter of trust and more a matter of keeping moods level. There was enough on their plates without adding the odd circumstances surrounding a decade old death.

**Author's Note:**

> So if you're reading this and it seems familiar: I wrote about these guys before. I posted it on my DeviantArt. I've been working on this AU since I was sixteen years old. 
> 
> It has been eight years.
> 
> I've done and redone character designs, tweaked story elements, and just done some massive rewrites to the characters. I've since deleted the work on DA because I got older and didn't like it anymore. It's still in my files, somewhere.
> 
> But I decided to finally share it. It's going to be a part of a much bigger universe.


End file.
